


bury me six feet in snow

by succulentsofa



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Character Study, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Gen, One Shot, That's the Major Character Death tag, basically just a look at his last moments?, mild tw for gore ect in this, yeah smokepaw dies in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29446290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/succulentsofa/pseuds/succulentsofa
Summary: Blackstar promised that he wouldn't let Smokepaw die. Now, as he lays sprawled on the snow-covered, grassy earth of some mountain he knows no name for, he's starting to think that his leader lied to him.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	bury me six feet in snow

**Author's Note:**

> short one-shot about smokepaw here -- as mentioned in the tags, trigger warnings for character death, and gore, as well as brief suicidal thoughts.

There's a bird flying overhead, and all Smokepaw can do is pray that it doesn't fly any closer.

He can't make out what it is. He begs - he's pleading feverishly to himself - that it's simply just a large crow. Perhaps a raven. Not an eagle, not some great, hulking bird of prey. Not something that'll scrape his already thin chance of survival down to nothing. Not something that would snatch him up, carry him away in its claws. Not something that wouldn’t notice that he was only half-dead, and see him as nothing more than food for its chicks.

Mercifully, the bird seems to curve gracefully away, and Smokepaw can breath a shuddering sigh of relief. The mere action makes his shattered ribs throb, and he winces. He feels like he should be numb to the pain by now, but it’s hard. It just hurts beyond anything he’s used to, and there’s nobody to help him.

Nobody's going to help him here, not now. Littlecloud isn't going to coax herbs down his throat, press a hastily assembled poultice to his broken legs. Blackstar isn't going to save him.

(He lied.)

He's going to die here, completely and utterly alone.

He's had a lot of time to think, these past few days. About his own mortality. About those he was leaving behind. Not that he really speaks to many cats in Shadowclan, he tends to just keep his head down, focused on his training. But he was friends with some cats - Russetfur had always been kind to him, and ever since he’d started bringing her mice in the morning, Nightwing had been sweet to him. And he’d always got on well with his mentor, Oakfur. 

He wonders if they'll miss him. Those journeying cats. He wonders if they'll always recount the tale of their travels with a side note, an anecdotal mention to the apprentice who didn't make it. He wonders if some queen will name one of their kits after him, if they'll be some other cat carrying his name after he's gone.

He allows himself to dream, to let himself fantaize. Because it's better than thinking about what is most likely the harsh reality. That they've been told to forget, to bury what happened to him away.

He heard them talking, after the fall, when he'd whistled through the air, landing with a harsh thud. When he'd lain, sprawled, with his legs broken in a hundred different ways beneath him. 

"I won't let you die." Blackstar had promised him solemnly, as they'd fled from the twoleg monsters, leaving his home behind.

Smokepaw hadn't heard him say anything like that, as he lay there on that ravine floor.

"He wouldn't have survived the fall, and we won't be able to get his body." Blackstar had said, and there had been a pause, and then the voices had… had gone. His clan had left.

Leaving him behind.

Blackstar had failed his promise. Left him behind. Left him to die, alone in the mud, legs broken beyond repair.

He attempts to lift his head, to gasp up at the sky, and he finds he's not strong enough. He was already weakened by the moons of poor eating and starvation back in the forest. He's been down here for two days, and he hasn't eaten a thing. He managed to drag himself painfully over to a puddle, and lap at it, but… that was it.

(Something in the back of his mind says that he can drown himself in the puddle when it finally gets too much.)

He can’t think like that. He has to have some hope. Remember what he was taught, get back to Oakfur. Do him proud. He’s a Shadowclan apprentice, damnit. Surely he can get out of a hole.

Except… he knows how far he fell. He knows how long it took to come crashing to the ground. He knows how high up the cliffedge is, and…

And he can’t even stand up. His back legs are completely mangled, and he thinks he’s sprained a paw. All he can do is crawl, shuffle against the snow-smeared ground pathetically.

Any flighting fancies of escape are gone. He’s stuck here. He knows deep in his heart that he’s going to die here, without his clanmates by his side, without the sacred rituals he’s known his entire life. He wanted to die in battle, defending his territory against some faceless enemy, be buried among the pine trees, not here. Not here, in the crevice of a cliff, in a slice of land that would never truly know Shadowclan scent.

He wanted to die having done something. He wanted to die having a family, having cats who’d known him, and loved him. He wanted to raise kits, to have an apprentice, teach them everything Oakfur had told him. He wanted to be something more than what he was, and now… now he’ll never have the chance.

He lets out a pained gasp, and tilts his head to turn away from that unforgiving sky. He doesn’t even know if Starclan would be able to find him, so far away from everything they’ve ever known. He wonders if he’ll become a ghost, a spirit-cat, forced to wander these cliff edges for eternity. 

He hopes not. He hopes that whatever is out there, whatever’s watching him toe the line between life and death with what must be a grim, sick pleasure, shows some mercy on him. Returns him to his warrior ancestors. 

His breathing is frantic, now, panicked. It’s a combination of his sudden realisation of how close to the end he is, and the fever that’s been mounting for the past few days. One of his many wounds has become infected, and even if he could move, he doesn’t know what herbs he could use to fix it. 

He’s slipping in and out of consciousness. At some point, his head lolls back, and he can see the sky again. It’s almost evening time, and the dusk is slowly settling over the mountains. He can see the moon, somewhere in the distance, and that calms him.

It’s the same moon. It’s the same moon he used to watch patiently every day, waiting for the day it would swell, and be full. It’s the same moon he saw on his way to his first gathering, back when Fourtrees was intact, and not just a wretched pile of rubble. It’s the same moon his clanmates are travelling under.

Even though home is so far away, he thinks he can smell the faintest scent of pine needles.

A single star twinkles in the sky, and his eyes focus, narrowing in on the pinprick of light, before they slide close.

He sees black, before he doesn’t see anything anymore.


End file.
